Excellent story, Danny. Thanks.
I totally relate to your friends. I grew up gay in a state (Texas) that turned totally right wing conservative during my lifetime. I came to Palm Springs, CA over 20 years ago and found an open, active gay community as well as an accepting community at large. I moved back to Texas for a year, but just couldn’t handle the social atmosphere. It just comfortable.
I came back to Palm Springs and it was like a second coming out. I’m happy and comfortable with my life again.
It’s good to have influential folks like you talk about this in such a positive, supporting way. Thanks again!

Excellent ruminations, dude. Thanks for being awesome and always supportive!

I actually just “celebrated” my 5 year anniversary of coming out. I did it about a month after 9/11, realizing that life was too short and that I needed to be honest with myself and with others. It was hard to do, and I was nervous, so I just “pretended” to have courage. Turns out, that’s as good as the real thing. (That was a saying I heard a number of times around about that time.) In short, my life is immeasurably better now that I’m out.

–Ken, The Third Guy Who Came Out To Danny

Once again, Danny, you show what a great person you are. I wish more people would think like you but as you know not everyone do. I have a lot of gay friends and some of the stories a few of them can tell about how their parents reacted is so scary. I truely don’t understand how anyone can treat their kids that way. To me the love to my kids is unconditional. If any of them turn out to be gay I really hope they have the guts to tell me and others and not fear for the reactions.
Keeping great secrets and living a double life is not good for anyone. It eats you up.

Danny – Thanks for the post. There is something to be said about “coming out” regarding your open and accepting attitude. That takes a bit of courage these days too.

Note to self: call repairman tomorrow to fix Danny’s broken gaydar so he’ll know his roomies are gay
I had a good friend that I worked with for years and every knew except him. Heck, my wife and I knew was gay the minute we met him but he kept trying to date women yet didn’t seem too interested in his “lady friends”.
He finally came out 2 years after I moved to California.
When he told me he said he had just recently figured it out [I still think he just admitted it to himself, but that's another story] and was expecting me to be shocked and I told him that WE should’ve let him know years ago because we all knew – LOL!

I met Greg at your 40th B-day party, he sat next to me at dinner, very nice guy.